It Started With A Tweet

by Anna Bell

  ‘Have fun,’ says Rosie cheerily.

  ‘Are you sure that we can’t go to the pub tonight?’ I say as he slams the door.

  ‘No,’ says Rosie. ‘We’ve got a very busy evening planned.’

  I sigh. If she thinks I’m doing any more work tonight, then she is very much mistaken. I can barely lift my arms above my head, what with the claw fingers from hanging off the side of a cliff and then the stripping of the wallpaper in the bathroom. I know that I’m getting a free stay here, but I’m her sister, not her slave.

  ‘I’m not doing any more work, my arms won’t allow it.’ I demonstrate how it’s near enough impossible to even lift them off the table that I’m leaning on.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got something else in mind,’ she says standing up.

  I groan, I can just tell this is going to end in me chanting round the candles again. So much for me thinking that she’d forgotten all about that mindfulness bollocks.

  She digs around in the fridge and pulls out a bottle of Baileys and a packet of chocolate fingers.

  ‘Girls’ night in,’ she says.

  I breathe out with relief. ‘Phew, now that I can do.’

  I watch Rosie as she pours two large glasses and slides one across the table to me.

  ‘I see you’ve got no trouble with your arms now,’ says Rosie, raising an eyebrow at me.

  I hesitate with the glass halfway to my lips. ‘This is medicinal.’

  ‘Uh-huh, sure.’

  The Baileys slips down so nicely, and all thoughts of the pub go out the window. Who needs a room full of strangers who would no doubt stare at us as the odd ones out all night – or worse, be like Gerry and Liz and interrogate us instead.

  ‘I wish we could put a rom-com on and chill out,’ I say, as I wriggle my bum trying to get comfy on the wooden kitchen chair. I’ve been worked to the bone, and there’s no bath in operation or a soft sofa to ease my aching muscles.

  Rosie scrunches up her face. ‘Yeah, I thought I was doing really well with this whole digital detox, but do you know what, I bloody miss the TV,’ she says sipping her drink.

  ‘Ha, I knew it,’ I say, pointing at her and almost whooping with delight. It makes me feel better that I’m not the only one pining after modern life.

  My ears start to tune into a buzzing in the room. ‘I must be going doolally,’ I say, looking around the room. It sounds so convincing, ‘I’m sure I can hear a phone buzzing. Must be all the talk of technology.’

  ‘Oh fuck it,’ says Rosie, jumping up and heading towards the door, and for a second my heart starts to race as I imagine that she’s going to go over to the well to get out the phones. I’m starting to fidget with excitement, but she reaches into a cupboard by the front door which I hadn’t even noticed.

  ‘I found this, this afternoon when I was looking for an Allen key. I was going to save it until we really needed it.’

  My heart sinks as she pulls out a small radio. I don’t know what I was expecting when she opened the door, it’s not as if it’s big enough to hold a secret TV or anything, but I can’t help but feel disappointed.

  ‘It’s not even digital,’ I say sighing, as if it’s the end of the world.

  ‘Then that makes it perfect with your digital detox.’

  She’s grinning as she switches it on, and she turns the aerial round as she twists the dial to get a station. It’s so obvious that she’s not going to pick anything up, as that’s just our luck out here, but the static gives way to a tiny bit of music.

  ‘Go back,’ I shout, and Rosie turns the dial slowly and then moves it back and forth until she tunes it in.

  Take That’s ‘Pray’ comes on and I almost weep with delight. Not only is it my favourite old school Take That song, but we’ve also got music and something to drown out the creaks and squeaks of the windows and the imaginary buzzing.

  ‘I love this song, I haven’t heard it in ages,’ says Rosie.

  She puts the radio in the centre of the table and we both stare at it in wonder. I bet this is just what it felt like back in the day to hear something on the wireless. Our attention captivated by the tinny and crackly sound of music coming from this little machine.

  I rip open the box of chocolate fingers and we both dig in. Despite the aches and pains, I seem to be doing a pretty good job of bobbing along in my chair to the music.

  The song comes to an end and the DJ comes on with a real local-radio DJ voice, a Cumbrian version of Alan Partridge. I’m expecting him to call us pop pickers at any moment.

  ‘Time to give it large. Up next on the ultimate nineties and noughties is “Do You Really Like It” by D J Pied Piper and the Master of Ceremonies.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Rosie, seeing my shoulder bob and raising it with a head nod. ‘This was one of my uni songs.’

  ‘It reminds me of my leavers’ ball at school,’ I say.

  It’s funny, as I often forget when I’m with Rosie that she’s three years older than me. It doesn’t make much of a difference now, but the gap felt as wide as the Grand Canyon when we were younger.

  ‘Did you have yours in the school hall like us?’

  ‘Yes, I think we had a sit-down dinner in the dining room first, and then a disco after.’

  ‘I bet it’s not like that now. It’s all prom dresses and limos.’

  ‘I know, and I thought I’d been indulgent having my hair done at the hairdresser’s.’

  ‘Wow, Mum let you have your hair done?’ She shakes her head. ‘Youngest children are always the spoilt ones.’

  ‘She probably would have done that for you too, but don’t forget you dyed it bright red after school finished and she was mad at you.’

  ‘Oh God, I did. It was supposed to be crimson but it looked like I’d been tangoed. It took months to grow out. It was still a pale pink when I started at sixth form. It would be real trendy now though, the faded-colour look.’

  ‘It would.’

  I giggle at the memory of my mum going nuts about Rosie’s hair. I remember her being grounded for weeks over it, as she’d not only, to quote Mum, ‘ruined her hair’, but she’d also ruined one of Mum’s precious M&S white towels that had flowers embroidered on it.

  ‘I think I’ve got to start dying my hair again,’ she says, pulling at her dirty blond ends. ‘I’m starting to go grey.’

  ‘Only starting to? I’ve had grey for years now.’

  She looks up at my head and I’m sure she’s starting to spot them. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘That’s because I rip them out when I see them, but the buggers keep coming back. Oh my God,’ I say, clapping my hand to my mouth as Enrique Iglesias’s ‘Hero’ comes on the radio. My cheeks immediately flush red at the memory.

  ‘Why have you turned beetroot?’

  ‘I slow danced to this with Russell Barns.’

  If I close my eyes I can still feeling him grabbing my bum as we shuffled awkwardly around the community centre where my friends were having their birthday party.

  ‘Ooh I remember him, he was the one with the really long curtains,’ she says, shrieking with laughter.

  ‘Yeah, and the undercut. He was one of the most popular boys in our year,’ I say proudly.

  ‘Did you snog him?’

  ‘No, I wish. He later got off with Amy Johnson.’

  ‘The one who had all those coloured braids in her hair?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, she did. Those friendship-bracelet-type things.’

  We’re both lost in our thoughts of nineties nostalgia before Rosie interrupts to give me a top up. ‘More Baileys?’ she asks, holding up the bottle, and I look down in surprise to see that my glass is empty.

  ‘Yes, please. You see, even back then my love life was a mess. I couldn’t even seal the deal with Russell Barns.’

  ‘Everyone’s love life was a mess back then, that’s the whole point of being a teenager.’

  ‘Then if that’s true, why has everyone else sorted theirs out and I haven’t?’

  Ro
sie nudges the box of chocolate fingers towards me as if it’s going to make it all better. I bite into one, and for a second I think she might be on to something.

  ‘Not everyone’s sorted. They might seem it on the outside, but just because they’ve had their happy ending doesn’t mean they’re living happily ever after.’

  Rosie looks sad, and I don’t think it’s helping that ‘Wind of Change’ has started playing, seemingly echoing our mood of melancholy.

  ‘Yes, but at least they’ve had the happy ending and have something to work with. I haven’t had a date with anyone that I wasn’t introduced to by my phone for years. I have to find men using an app. I mean, I’m not ordering a bloody pizza, I’m trying to find a soulmate.’

  ‘I’m married and I can’t remember the last time Rupert and I went on a date. Sure, we go to client dinners and dinner parties with friends, but I don’t know when we last went out just the two of us, where he didn’t cancel because he was working.’

  ‘But at least you get to share a bed with someone at night. I haven’t slept in the same bed as someone in over two years.’

  ‘You haven’t had sex in over two years?’

  ‘Of course I have,’ I say, looking at my sister like she’s an idiot. ‘My love life’s not that much of a disaster. I just mean I didn’t stay overnight and didn’t have the whole fall-asleep-in each-other’s-arms-until-your-limbs-go-numb experience.’

  ‘Then I don’t think I’ve done that for years either. Rupert is definitely not a cuddly sleeper.’

  ‘I don’t understand how I can live in a city of eight and a half million people and still be desperately lonely.’

  ‘I don’t understand how I can live in a flat with the love of my life and still be lonely.’

  I look up at Rosie and see her blink back some tears.

  ‘I don’t understand how our girls’ night in got so depressing so suddenly,’ I say, trying and failing to lighten the mood. One minute we were up and now we’re so far down that I’m afraid if they play ‘Everybody Hurts’, we’ll be throwing ourselves into the well, and not to retrieve our phones.

  ‘Is it really that bad between you and Rupert? I thought he was just mad at you for buying the house?’

  ‘It’s worse than that. I mean, we still love each other, it’s just . . . When I was working I wouldn’t even have noticed that there was a problem; we’d be out at the crack of dawn and back after sunset, we’d grab a ready meal, collapse in front of the telly for an hour or so and head off to bed. It didn’t matter if he worked late as I’d probably be doing the same. We’d both just update our joint Google Calendar with plans with friends without consulting each other, just assuming that if we were free we’d go along with it. But, somehow with me leaving my job and having time for myself, I’ve realised how little time we actually made for each other.’

  ‘And that’s why this house is so important?’

  ‘If I could just make him see that we could run a business where he wouldn’t have to work all the hours, then we could have a real life. One where I’d be happy to have children.’

  ‘I’ve never wanted to ask,’ I say, treading carefully, as I’d often wondered if they’d had problems conceiving, ‘but do you want children?’

  ‘Rupert really does, but I don’t, at least not yet. I don’t want to be a single parent, which is effectively what I would be if Ru carried on as he is. He wouldn’t get home in time to see the kids go to bed; he’d be like a weekend dad. I want us to be parents together.’

  I try to picture Ru being the kind of dad who’d do nappy runs and push a baby in a pram, but it’s hard to imagine.

  ‘Have you told him this?’

  ‘I’ve tried, but he doesn’t really understand.’

  ‘Maybe it was him who you should have brought on your digital detox and not me.’

  She smiles. ‘Maybe you’re right. When did you get so wise?’

  ‘I have always been very wise; you always just ignored what I had to say because I’m your annoying little sister.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she says nodding.

  I fill up our glasses without asking. It feels like too deep a conversation to be having with our glasses empty.

  ‘I think the problem with your generation’, she says, as if there’s a bigger gap than three years, ‘is that you’re too reliant on technology. I mean, I met Rupert in the students’ union. I pinched him on the bum, thinking he was one of my flatmates, and when he turned round all confused we started chatting. If you’d shown me a photo of him beforehand I would have told you that he wasn’t my type. He was practically bald even then. But after an hour of chatting I was smitten. You need to go out and meet a man in real life.’

  ‘In real life,’ I say, repeating it and laughing. ‘If only it were that bloody simple. No one talks to anyone in London, it’s not like I could strike up a conversation with a hot guy on the tube.’

  ‘But what about at work or meeting someone through a friend of a friend?’

  I shake my head. I didn’t fancy any of my work colleagues and I know most of my friends’ friends. My social circle gets smaller every year as people start moving out to the suburbs or commuter towns and start having kids. House parties have become a thing of the past, now it’s afternoon barbecues where nearly everyone goes with their partners and offspring, and I’m usually left feeling like Bridget Jones.

  ‘I just find the whole idea of apps creepy. It’s like you’re buying a man off Amazon.’

  ‘Oh, I wish you could buy a man off Amazon. How great would that be, being able to customise the different bits and then return him if he wasn’t right? Ooh and you could read reviews before you ordered.’

  Rosie shakes her head at me. ‘I just think dating was easier back in the day. We didn’t really use our phones as much when we lived in halls, so Rupert used to slip notes under my door and that’s how we’d arrange to meet each other.’

  I see that her cheeks have started to go pink.

  ‘Now who’s the one going beetroot?’

  She laughs a little before coughing. ‘Just remembering one of his notes that really made me, um, laugh. I know that people text these days, but I don’t think it’s the same as seeing pen on paper.’

  I pat the pocket on my jeans under the table, feeling the paper under the fabric. I actually know what she means. Getting that note from Jack was the highlight of my day, and he was been funny and just a little flirty with me, wasn’t he? And he is cute, in that rugged, outdoorsy, dressed-like-a-yeti type of way. If Alexis is going to go off to the pub and not invite me, maybe Jack would be more interested.

  ‘You’ll meet someone,’ she says, finishing the rest of her drink. ‘Who knows, when you go back to London and start a new job, you might meet someone at work.’

  ‘Maybe . . .’

  ‘Ah,’ she screams, jumping up. ‘We have to dance to this.’

  The violin intro to Steps’ ‘5, 6, 7, 8’ starts to play, and I watch Rosie start line dancing around the kitchen. I stand up with ease – the Baileys has been medicinal after all, I barely have any pain in my muscles now. I start shimmying around and lassoing as I try and copy Rosie’s moves.

  ‘Oh God,’ she says, laughing as the song comes to an end. ‘I’ve gotta pee so badly. What stupid idiot thought it would be a good idea to get drunk and to have a Portaloo outside instead of an actual toilet?’ She grabs a head torch from the table and slips it on over her head. ‘I’ll be back,’ she says in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.

  I watch her go and sit back at the table. I can’t help but pull Jack’s note out of my pocket and read it again. Rosie’s right, there is something about seeing it handwritten in pen.

  Without thinking, I shove it back in my pocket and grab my notepad and pen, which are still on the table.

  Dear Jack,

  No need to apologise about seeing me naked. Tons of guys have already.

  I rip the paper from the pad and screw it up. That’s not quite the impression
of myself I want to give him.

  Dear Jack,

  No need to apologise about seeing me naked, you’ve already groped my arse, so what’s a little flesh between neighbours (or friends, hopefully)? Thanks to Buster, we now have no shower, so likely you’ll smell me before you see me. Rosie says there’s a stream nearby, so if the weather ever improves maybe I can go for a skinny dip – FYI, just in case Buster likes to go pigeon hunting there too . . .

  I can hear the Portaloo door squeak outside, before the sound of footsteps coming across the courtyard and I know I’ve got to hurry.

  Anyway, see you around, neighbour. Maybe I’ll be over some day for some sugar.

  Daisy x

  P.S. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that you won’t tell me who presented The Price is Right or that you googled it in the first place.

  I shove the letter hastily into my hoodie pocket, along with the scrunched-up ball, just as Rosie pushes the door open.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ I say, before she can step inside. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  ‘Are you mad? It’s pitch-black out there.’

  ‘I just want to see the stars.’

  ‘We can do that standing outside; we don’t need to go for a walk.’

  ‘Please,’ I say, ‘we can have a wander down the drive. You never know, we might bump into Alexis on the way.’

  Rosie rolls her eyes at me. ‘I see what’s going on. We get all deep and meaningful and now you think he’s going to be the man for you. Don’t you think he’s a bit young?’

  I can’t tell her that right now I’ve got another man in my sights, as she’d start meddling all over the place.

  ‘I don’t want to see him in that way. I just thought it would be fun going for a walk. Like going for an adventure.’

  Rosie rolls her eyes again and sways a little. I step outside and slam the door so that she has no choice but to join me.

  She’s right, it is bloody dark, but thankfully her head torch is surprisingly powerful.

  I loop my arm through hers and we start to walk up the small hill to the drive.

  ‘The stars really are incredible,’ I say, tipping my head back and appreciating them. Even though I’ve been marvelling at them over the last few nights, they still take my breath away. Even when I grumpily went for a wee in the Portaloo during the night, my mood improved as soon as I set foot outside and saw them.